City of Clockwork
by LPDracobeatsall
Summary: So what if Sophie went back in time and told Will and Jem how their story was going to end. How Tessa seemed not to have loved either of them because she continually went back and forth between them. What would they change? How would that affect Clary and Jace? If Clary didn't have Jace, would she have survived the war? (For those who hate Tessa and think Clary is an idiot)
1. Story Change

**So I started a Clockwork Angel one a while ago but I fell off track and then I thought of this version of it. (I just really wanted to kill Tessa off) So here it is, Cassandra Claire owns all the characters from both books and the scenes that I recreated.**

* * *

Chapter 1

Will took his time getting to dinner. Jem was once again recovering from an accidental low-dosage of his medicine and Charlotte was busy overseeing the recovery of the newest addition to the institute. That left him, Jessamine, and Henry at a table for the entire length of dinner.

Maybe he would skip the affair altogether.

He smiled. Tessa. The silent brothers said she was going to wake up within the next couple of days and then she would be back to correcting and berating him as she had yesterday during her rescue. She had complained about losing her books and all he could imagine was her face when he would bring her to the library. She'd probably thank him and give him one of her wide-mouthed smiles.

He closed his bedroom door behind him, better safe than sorry, and strolled down the hallway towards Jem's room. He'd check on him first and then decide whether he could survive dinner, a task harder than slaying a million demons.

He didn't knock like usual, bursting in was one of his favorite ways of annoying Jem. Someone had to keep him on his toes, and Will was just the guy to do it.

It seems though, that today he should have knocked. Sitting on a chair next to Jem's bed where Jem was sitting up and talking was Sophie. But it wasn't their Sophie.

Well, it **was** Sophie. He could see her in the scar and alert brown eyes, both of which were now on a wrinkled face and buried beneath a bush of grey hair.

"Will," she said, her voice slightly deeper and wavering with age, "I was just about to go get you."

He was frozen in front of the door. "Sophie?" He asked, it came out like a question despite his recognition.

"Honestly, Will," Jem said. "You know it's her, now shut the door and come over here, she didn't come here just for you to stare at her."

Will pulled the door closed and slowly edged towards his friend and the old lady in front of him. "Why are you so old?"

She shot him a dirty look, "What, Will, goes through your mind that you think that's ok to say to an elderly woman?"

"She's from the future," Jem cut in, familiar with their arguments enough to know when to stop them. "She has something important for us to do."

"The future?" Will said, leaning against Jem's bed. "I assume I still look as devilishly handsome as ever?"

Sophie smiled, "Well I can't say you pulled off being dead very well this morning."

Will shrugged despite that comment making him feel like a hippo sat on his chest, "God giveth and he taketh away. You're all just lucky you could see this brilliance for as long as you did."

Sophie chose to ignore him. "As I was telling Jem, we were at your funeral when Magnus brought up that he had been working on a spell to transfer one back into the past for a little while."

"Magnus, Magnus Bane?" Will asked.

Sophie smiled. "Yes, you two come to be very close friends."

As Will processed this, she continued. "He said it was very difficult magic, and only one of us would be able to go back and even then only for a couple of hours. It would drain him, you see, and his magic would not be powerful enough to create the spell again for at least a century. Everyone agreed that it should be Tessa, seeing as how she was your wife."

Jem jumped and started asking questions at the same time Will was shouting, "My WIFE? My WIFE?"

And so she told them their future. Starting from today and up until Will's death. She told Jem of how he fell in love with Tessa and how she agreed to marry him. About how he increased his drug intake and increased his death rate leading to his eventual transformation into a Silent Brother. She told Will about his love for Tessa and how he eventually came to realize his cure was a lie and that the news came too late. She told him about what he and Tessa did the night of Jem's supposed "death" (Tessa, it seems, shared this dirty secret with her friends) and about their eventual marriage and their children. She led them through every battle with Mortiman and she left nothing out.

And then she paused.

The boys were silent. She took it as a cue to go on.

"And so this morning, Tessa declared that she would be traveling back to today. She wouldn't intervene, she merely wanted to hide in the shadows and see you again, Will. And, well, I disagreed. She is part demon, and though everyone says the shadowhunter blood seems to have won out, I know the truth. The demon blood burned away everything inside of her that was human and decent, all that was left was nastiness disguised as innocence."

She paused, looking into Will's eyes. "We never very much got along, Will. But the minute you passed I could see it in her eyes, the calculating way she watched Jem as he performed his duty as a Silent Brother. The way she watched your kids, waiting to abandon them as if she had died as well. I even thought back to all the death she caused after she was brought to the institute. And I knew. She is a devil, a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I couldn't let it happen."

"So," Will started, realizing where this was going.

She looked down, embarrassed. "So this morning, as Tessa began to step into the portal, I pushed her out of the way and entered instead."

"And now we know," Jem said. "We will not allow her to stay here with us, we will have her removed from the institute."

Sophie shook her head. "Even if she is not staying here, death and destruction will follow her. In your time her case is still a mystery and she will just be placed into a different institute. Not to mention Charlotte will be replaced for not accepting her. And, well, I think Will knows the other issue."

He did know, he had been fantasizing about that particular issue all morning. "So," Will repeated, again knowing where this was headed.

Sophie looked up and her wise, old eyes were strong. "I want you to kill her."

Jem gasped. "We can't- I won't- that's not-"

"I'll do it," Will said.

Sophie smiled and then she turned her head and looked past him. The portal was there, waiting for her to leave. She stood and shuffled through it as Jem's cries continued to erupt at Will. And then, everything returned to normal.

"Will, you will not kill an innocent-" Will slapped a hand over his parabati's mouth.

"Jem, as soon as she wakes up, I'm gone. This demon will kill people we love, seduce me, seduce you, and create offspring that God only knows how evil they will be. I have one chance to avenge my death, and I'm going to take it."

He pulled his hand away and waited for his friend's permission.

Jem looked down. Will counted the minutes.

"Sophie did say she was more demon than human." He mumbled.

"She'll leech onto you too." Will reminded him.

Jem winced. He balled his hands together on his lap. "Do it."

He looked up, eyes fierce. "Save us both."

* * *

Will closed the door softly, not yet ready to face the sleeping form on the bed. He had told Charlotte that Henry was on fire and promised to watch Tessa for her. But she wouldn't be there to watch in a couple of minutes.

He took a deep breath and felt nothing but calm determination. He would not regret this.

Turning, he saw it. It, not her.

Brown hair spread across a white pillow, pale lips open just enough for each tiny breath, light blue blushed eyelids with long lashes shadowing high cheekbones.

It was beautiful, but beauty is the way evil disguises itself.

He approached the bed, lifting his seraph blade high.

Hands steady, mind set, he smiled. "Goodbye, Tessa."

He brought the blade down and she opened her eyes. "Will!" she gasped.

Black blood bubbled up around the blade, and Will stepped back from the mess it was creating.

"Will!" she screamed. And with a roar of black flames she disappeared.

Sophie was right, she was a demon through and through.

* * *

Clary looked smiled down at Jace, watching the fire in his veins travel through him. He would be alright, he was still Jace.

He reached a hand up, toward her face, but they never touched. His hand disappeared.

"Clary!" He shouted in alarm. She jumped off the bed as he ripped the blankets away, as he slowly disappeared from the feet up.

"I'll get a Silent Brother!" She shouted, sprinting for the door where they continually stood during her visits.

"I love you Clary!" He shouted desperately, and she turned.

He was gone.

The floor seemed to rush up at her, she was falling.

"Clary,"

_Jace, I'm coming,_ she thought.

"Clary,"

_Jace, _she thought.

"Clary,"

_I'm coming._

* * *

"Clary," Simon said, shaking her. "Clary, are you alright?"

She opened her eyes. It was dark, but bright multicolored lasers illuminated the unfamiliar bodies around her as they swayed and grinded on each other. She was on the ground.

"Simon?" She asked, automatically reaching to let him pull her up.

"I thought you just weren't listening, but then you fainted. Are you feeling ok? You should probably go home, get some rest." Simon's eyes roamed over her face, searching.

A glimmer of red caught her eye and she looked past Simon at it. A girl, tall and skinny in an old-fashioned floor-length gown was walking backwards through the crowd. Her long black hair fell past her hips and a fist-sized ruby glinted on a chain around her neck, the red that had caught Clary's eye. She was staring, beckoning, at a boy following her as though he was in a trance, blue hair spiking straight up.

_I've seen this before_, thought Clary, but just as the thought came it disappeared. She was left with a slight feeling of déjà vu. The girl leaned back against what seemed to be a supply closet and pulled up her skirt to show kinky thigh-high boots. The boy closed in and opened the door behind her, spilling them through the doorway. Just as the door was about to close, Clary caught a dark head slipping in after them.

She sighed, just another couple doing it in a closet.

"-sound ok?" Simon was finishing. She nodded, she hadn't heard anything he had said but she trusted him. Her head swam, something didn't feel right.

Simon grabbed her arm gently, holding her steady, and led her out of the Pandemonium Club.


	2. Avoiding Disaster

Chapter 2

Clary stared down into the greasy hills in her slice of pizza. Why did everything feel so wrong? This wasn't anywhere near the first time she had slept over at Simon's and nothing had happened to make her night bad. After all, just this morning she was dancing at Pandemonium like usual, and the only reason she had fallen was because she was tired. Right?

So then why did she feel like she was missing something?

Simon was still staring at her as if at any moment she might die, right there on the spot.

"Stop," she said, shooting him a glare. "I'm FINE. I slept for twelve hours, there is nothing wrong with me."

He nodded, looking down. "I know, I know, you just scared me. I thought I was going to have to give you CPR or something."

She laughed. "Well lucky that you didn't have to."

He blushed. "Yeah, I would have had to bleach my mouth or something after."

Her eyebrows twitched together. That was taking it a little far, wasn't it? She looked back down at the pizza in her hand.

"So…uh…was your mom cool with us going over to support Eric?"

She had called her mom on the taxi ride over to Simon's, explaining to her why she would not be home until late that night. Her mother had seemed fine, if not a little worried for her health, but had stressed that she be home by midnight that night.

"But you'll be home by midnight, correct?" She had asked repeatedly followed by a, "I have something really important to discuss with you before tomorrow."

It was all very sporadic and nagging, the way her mother usually behaved whenever Clary expressed even a little bit of freedom.

"Yeah, she's fine with it." Clary said and Simon flipped on a made-for-TV movie and the need for talking ended.

Hours later, they walked into the coffee house where Eric was going to give his truly horrendous poetry reading.

"You find the seats, I'll get the drinks?" Simon offered. Clary nodded, drifting towards the mismatched couches.

She found one, hidden in shadows and near the back that would be perfect if an emergency escape was needed. Plopping down into the worn cushions that swallowed up her skinny hips, she rolled her shoulders. She would leave early tonight, to make sure she got enough sleep to drown out the feeling off loss she kept having.

"Hey,"

Clary turned. Behind her couch and to the left a little was a girl sitting at a bar-table. She leaned toward Clary. "Is he your boyfriend?" She pointed at Simon, making his way, slowly, across the sea of furniture.

Clary looked the girl over, a weird tightening happened in her chest when she thought of her checking out Simon. "No," Clary answered after a moment.

The girl quirked her eyebrows and opened her mouth for another question.

"No trays, no lids," Simon said placing the steaming cups down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

The girl leaned away, suddenly interested in the texture of the table she was sitting at.

"Thanks," Clary said. She stopped, should she tell him? He sat down next to her and took a sip of his coffee. She leaned over. "Behind us, red shirt, thinks you're hot."

He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

"How long ago did he pass by?" He asked pretending to look out the windows behind them as an excuse to look at the girl.

He turned back and lowered his voice. "Not my type. And anyway, I'm kind of into someone else."

Clary raised her eyebrows, this was the first she had heard of this. "Oh yeah? Who?"

Simon's face was turning red. First the ears, then the neck, and then his cheeks. "Well, umm, it all started- well not really started because I knew I liked- because I was talking to Eric and, you know, complaining about my lack of a girlfriend. And he listed a couple of the single girls that he knew but I told him that wouldn't work because I already liked someone. And I told him who. And he, well you know Eric, he said I should tell her, and so I figured I should, you know, tell you. Not tell you as in tell YOU, but you know-"

"So who is it?" Clary asked, a little bored with his rambling.

"Umm," he licked his lips, glanced once around the room, and started tapping his foot. "Well…it's…it's umm…you."

"What?" Clary lost the little smile that had been teasing her lips.

Simon looked down at his lap. "I…like…you."

Loud feedback sounded from the microphone at the front.

"Look, Simon, I-"

Clary's phone went off. She dove for it. "Hello?"

"Clary?" Her mom sounded winded.

"Testing, testing," Came a loud reply from the front of the room.

"Hold on a sec, mom, I can't hear you," She left the couch, and Simon, and stood outside next to the door. "Alright, what did you say?"

"Honey, I need you to come home right now."

A protest started on her lips but then died. What was waiting for her back in that coffee shop? The last awkward moments left of her friendship with Simon? "Yeah, yeah, okay, give me a sec to grab a cab okay? And I'll be right home."

"Perfect," her mom sounded relieved.

Minutes later she gave the cabbie her address and settled back into the seat. She pulled out her phone. _Sorry my mom needs me at home, it's urgent. Come over tomorrow to talk about it, okay?_ She texted. Waited.

_Fine, see you then._

It was the most she could allow herself: the rest of the day to ignore the fact that her best friend had a crush on her. And that she did not feel the same.

She left the cab in front of her old brownstone, now a few dollars short, and entered into the hall. Madame Dorothea's door was closed and no light spilled under the crack between the door and the floor. Mounting the wide staircase, Clary reached her own door only to hear conversation leaking out of the thin walls.

"-said she'd be here in a couple of minutes." Her mother's voice.

"I am a busy man, Jocelyn, I can't wait around for every teenage girl to feel like coming home."

"She-"

"Especially when I think you and I both know who could be showing up at any moment."

Clary rushed to fit her key in the lock. What were they talking about?

"Clary! Thank goodness," her mother met her at the door, closing it behind her. "This is-"

"Clary would you come here a moment?" The man asked. Clary gasped.

"Your eyes!" She shouted, sounding like an impolite five-year-old.

"Clary," Her mother scolded.

But it was the eyes, cats' eyes, lined in charcoal and staring at her that held her attention.

"Yes, strange aren't they?" The man continued dreamily. Her eyes stayed locked on his, but her vision swam. She felt strangely as if she were floating. "But, you have no need to worry yourself with them," He continued in the soft careful tones. "In fact, I'm sure you've seen many strange things like these this past year, haven't you?"

Suddenly visions of her talking with Simon at Central park and seeing little flying people came back. She remembered walking down the street and a man suddenly being murdered with an arrow in front of her, and then watching him disappear. Dozens of strange memories that she did not think were hers, because they were clearly illogical, swam into focus.

She shuddered, what was happening?

"That's right, they are unpleasant. But you can let them go. Let them go Clary." And because he asked her to, she did.

* * *

"Next year the same time?" Jocelyn asked Magnus while paying him. Clary lay unconscious at their feet.

Magnus folded the money into one of the pockets on this leather, studded pants. "Send me the new address as soon as you get settled."

Jocelyn nodded, stepping over Clary and leading Magnus to the door. "Of course."

Magnus turned and left, and Jocelyn surveyed the task in front of her. She may have quit being a shadowhunter years ago, but muscles always remember what they used to do.

She grunted under the weight of her daughter, shifted her position, and proceeded down the stairs, leaving the apartment for the final time. Dorothea's door opened without her having to knock and she crept through the parlor and came to a stop in front of the portal.

"He left with the bags a half-hour ago." Dorothea's gravelly voice drifted from the far corner. Jocelyn could make out her hunched form in the shadows. She thanked the stars that Luke had been there to take her belongings, there was no way she could have carried them with Clary comatose.

"You will change its course after I am through?"

"He will not find you," Dorothea guaranteed, and Jocelyn believed her.

She took a breath and grabbed the doorknob.

Falling was always the hardest part, now harder with a body in her arms. Jocelyn relaxed her shoulders and her body prepared itself, after years training, for impact. She rolled on the hard packed dirt, protecting Clary from as much damage as possible, and came to a stop.

A figure rushed in from the path between the shoulder height corn in front of her. Luke looked down at her.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded and handed Clary up to him. He took one glance at her face and sighed in disgust. "You had her swiped. Didn't you?"

Jocelyn stood and began leading the way towards the towering farmhouse and barn in the distance. "It's the last time, I swear. After this, we'll hopefully have another decade free and I'll tell her."

Luke laughed, loud and harsh.

"I will," she said sternly, stopping to look him in the eye. "She was too young before and then he kept getting to close to finding us, it wouldn't have been safe for her to know. Now we're moving again and we have time."

Luke brushed past her. "When a new problem comes up, I want you to remember you said that."

Jocelyn hated that she knew he was right.


	3. Demon in the Apartment

Chapter 3

_I'm coming over._

Simon frowned down at his phone as the message finished sending to Clary. He shouldn't have told her. The look on her face, one of shock and disgust was one he could never erase from his memory. And then her message for him to meet her today at her house, probably her trying to end the friendship decently instead of ending it with her running away from him.

But he would save it. Feelings could be buried and his would be so far pushed down a dump truck would have to reveal them. This friendship would not end, it was one of the few things that kept him going.

A life without Clary was one he didn't want to live.

He was out of the cab before it came to a complete stop, pushing open the front door to her apartment building. His quick steps to the stairs _tap, tap, tapped_ in a way that seemed to increase his urgency. The squeal of a door opening caused him to glance up, but it wasn't her door and so he kept moving.

"Young man,"

He ignored the call clearly made for him. This was too important to waste time talking to neighbors.

"Young man, stop." He turned, keeping his face from showing too much annoyance to Clary's neighbor, Madame Dorothea. "There's nothing for you up there." She continued.

Did she know about his confession? "Umm, I'm sorry ma'am but my friend Clary is up there."

She shot him a withering look. "They're gone. And they're not coming back."

What was she talking about?

"And I suggest," she continued, turning back into her apartment, "that you do the same and leave here."

He paused for about a second, letting her words travel over him even as her door closed behind her. Then he mounted the stairs, skipping steps in his haste.

The door was a crack open, not visible from the lobby but enough that it seemed strange they hadn't closed it.

He pushed it open, stopping short when he discovered the furniture was gone. Everything was gone.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he continued farther into his best friend's home. "Clary?" He called out, hoping beyond hope that she would answer and this would all be some new art phase of her mother's.

Panic set in when she didn't answer. Did she skip town because of what he'd told her? That seemed a little extreme.

He pushed her bedroom door, finding everything stripped and clean. Next door was her mother's room, a place he had never been, but this was urgent.

He reached the door and heard a thump. It was her, it had to be her. What if they were robbed and then tied up and left in the room? He would be the hero, she would have to love him.

He shoved open the door and let it crash into the opposite wall with a _bang_. Thumps sounded on the other side of the bedframe in the room. He crept closer. This was it.

"Clary I'm-"

A growl erupted from the beast staring back at him. A dog, what breed he didn't know, rose to the height of Simon's waist looking ready to kill.

Simon backed up, hands raised in a surrendering position as he tried to step backwards and out the door.

The dog was just staring at him, teeth bared with a low growl seeming to erupt out of every pore in its body.

Simon's left foot crossed the entrance to the door, he was almost into the hall.

It was on him before he could turn, jaw clamped onto his throat squeezing his airway closed and ripping through his muscle and arteries like paper. He fell to the floor, his head glancing off of the wall in the process.

Simon clawed desperately at it, at the doorway. Life was dropping like sand in an hourglass.

It jerked, twisting him left and right, blood now coating his hands and face like frosting on a messy toddler.

Simon heard a snap and then it was over. He was gone.


	4. Inspection

**Author's note:**

**This special chapter is dedicated to Gemini300 whose angry PM's telling me I am an idiot and a twit and that I should stop writing gave me the encouragement I needed to work on this story.**

**As for the other comments I have received, (thank you so much for the reviews btw) I don't really know where I'm going to take this story. Right now I'm just following the natural chain of events, but I will tell you that I have two separate ideas. The first will bring in our friends from the past and make this story longer. The second will not and will pretty much fulfill everyone's hatred for the series. Your choice. Depends on reviews.**

* * *

Chapter 4

"Alec," Isabelle said, catching him in the middle of target practice in the training room.

He turned to shoot her an annoyed glare over his shoulder but lowered his bow and turned fully at her tense expression.

"Yeah?" He asked. What had happened now? There'd been no activity since their last demon at Pandemonium.

"Demon activity," she said shifting from foot to foot in anxiousness. "In a brownstone of a mundane family."

Alec felt his eyebrows raise. "Yeah, ok, just give me a sec."

* * *

Isabelle waited in front of the big oak doors for her brother to appear, fully protected in gear. She had to keep moving to keep out her excited energy. This was one of the first times they'd actually get to investigate a demon site on their own, not just come to kill.

Alec appeared and she breathed out a sigh of relief. Any longer and she would have been moving him at seraph-blade-point.

The invisibility rune bled deep black into his arm, the same as hers, as they left the institute and dodged past the wanderers on the sidewalks. Isabelle ran at full speed, not wasting a moment to arrive at the crime scene.

At the front of the building she paused, waited for Alec to catch up, and then pushed open the door into a small front lobby. The call had said the demon residue traced up the stairs, and Isabelle followed it, sensor ready to go in her left hand and a seraph blade in the other. Her whip sat at her waist but she would not be able to use it, what with the small rooms. Alec had her back as she pushed open the front door and entered the apartment.

Immediately her sensor started ticking like an angry clock and she followed it down a hallway. And then she stopped.

The second to last door was open and stretching out, unmoving, lay a human arm. Isabelle's heart picked up its pace as she approached, feeling Alex behind her without having to turn around. She tucked her sensor into her belt and turned to look through the doorway.

A Ravener sat slowly eating away at the flesh on the mundane's right leg. It was clear now that this man was dead. From his lower thigh down nothing remained but his bones.

At the sight of Isabelle, the demon hissed and drew back into the room.

"Shadowhunter!" It cried as she jumped the corpse and approached it with her seraph blade.

She didn't waste time with comments, approaching slowly she dodged past each of its attempts at hitting her with its stinger.

_That's it, _she thought, _watch me dance around you until-_

With a jolt, it received Alec's seraph blade through the skull.

"You will pay! Valentine will make you pay!" It screeched as the black, thick blood spilled out and disappeared with the rest of it.

"Another one talking about Valentine," Alec commented, inspecting the body.

"And another one dead," Isabelle added. She walked around to the man's head and lifted it to inspect his face. "He's young." She stated, putting his head back onto the floor.

"But what was he doing, messing around with demons?" Alec mused to himself. "Who's the owner of the house again?"

"A Ms. Jocelyn Fray."

Alec pulled a cell phone and a wallet out of the guy's pockets. "It says here this guy's name is Simon Lewis, so how did he end up here?"

Isabelle raised her eyebrows, this was getting interesting now. "Check his contacts."

Alec stared deeply into the brightly lit screen for only a couple of seconds before giving a low whistle. "Yep, there's a Clary Fray in here. Seems to be his girlfriend by how many text messages he's sent her."

"Give me that." Isabelle ripped it out of his hand and looked into it herself. Then she stopped. "'Talk about it'? Talk about what?"

"I don't know, but her mom was making her come home and it was urgent. That could mean something."

"Do you think they were all in on it?"

"Could be."

"But then where are their bodies?"

Alec glanced around as if just noticing now that only one body was found in the room. "Search the apartment."

But after several glances into every closet and room the two were forced to conclude that they were two bodies short.

"Wait," Isabelle said, snapping her fingers. "The downstairs neighbors, I bet they saw the two the last time they came home. Maybe they saw them leave too."

Alec nodded.


	5. Waking Up

Chapter 5

"Mom?" Clary called out in alarm as she made her way down the familiar hallways of the farmhouse. How had she gotten here? Last she remembered she had been with Simon at a poetry reading.

Her mom was seated at the big oak table that tied in with the rest of the country themed kitchen. Glittering sunlight turned the white cabinets yellow in their haste to coat the entire room. Head bent and eyes downcast, her mother had not yet seen her approach. In her hands rested what seemed to be a deck of cards, yet their size was larger than standard. She stroked the upturned card, gazing down at its surface with glossed over eyes.

"Mom," Clary repeated, standing just inside the room.

Her mom jerked her head up, pulling the cards under the table and into her lap. "Yeah, honey?" Her voice cracked.

Clary's eyes followed the bulk in her mother's hands until her mother stood, placing the cards in her back pocket. "Honey?" She repeated.

"I don't remember." Clary whispered, eyes glancing around. "Why don't I remember?" She asked, louder.

"Honey," her mom placed her hands on Clary's shoulders. "Calm down. You got sick remember? I had to come pick you up from the poetry reading and bring you home. Which, of course, is right here for now until we can find a new apartment."

"What?" Clary asked, none of this sounded familiar.

"Honey I think we should probably take you to the doctor. Don't you remember the day we moved out? It was last week after Mr. Duffy blamed us for the broken staircase? We were asked to leave and we've been here ever since. I've had to drive you down to the train station each time you wanted to go see your friends."

They moved? Clary didn't have the slightest memory. Her mother was looking at her expectantly and Clary took a deep breath. Her mother said they moved so it must be true, and as for her sickness she probably was still waking up from being out of it for so long. She would remember soon, her mother was telling the truth.

"Yeah, ok," she started. "I remember now. Sorry, I must still be kind of out of it."

Her mother smiled. "Thank goodness, you had me worried for a second. Why don't you go sit down in the living room and I'll bring you some soup? You can put on a movie and just relax while you recuperate."

Clary smiled and followed her instructions. She would remember. After all, who forgot the entire experience of moving?

Isabelle watched Alec pound on the neighbor's door. This was getting more exciting by the second. Who knew that her first investigation would be so intense? A soft padded sound like someone walking on a mattress came from beyond the wood and then the door breezed open. Dark eyes poked out beneath wrinkles so deep, Isabelle imagined she could lose change in them.

"Why are you pounding on my door like some kind of maniacs?" The old lady screeched.

"We're sorry to bother you," Alec started, glancing at Isabelle for encouragement. He always had such a hard time trying to behave mundane. "But we need to know when the last time you saw your upstairs neighbors was."

The old woman looked them over, focusing a little bit longer on Alec, before sighing. "Come in, come in, just today I will help the Clave."

Isabelle felt her eyebrows shoot up. "You know who we are?"

The lady cackled and then quick as a snake snatched up Isabelle's arm. "As if I didn't know what these markings were on your arms."

Isabelle yanked her arm back and wearily followed her brother into the lady's home. Demons she could handle. Creepy old ladies…not so much.

"What do you know?" Alec asked as she stopped them in a parlor of sorts.

She clucked her tongue and moved to the wall to their right were a sheet hung. "What I know is that that selfish, nasty lady and her child that I so gracefully hid from you stole my tarot cards. That's what I know." She grumbled.

Isabelle furrowed her eyes. What the heck was she talking about?

"So the old tenants, they were hidden members of the Clave?" Alec prodded.

The woman reached up and grasped the thick midnight blue fabric in front of her. Then, with a clank of metal, she ripped it aside revealing a door.

Isabelle gasped. "A portal!"

"You can't-" Alec started.

"I have not changed it yet." The lady interrupted. "I do not help arrogant shadowhunters such as yourself. But seeing as how we have a common purpose: you want to find them, I want to punish her, I am going to offer you this chance to follow them. But, if you question me or report me I have no problem with destroying its memory of their destination. Choose wisely."

They should request backup, skilled shadowhunters. Those who had been a part of the Clave for years. This was unknown territory. Isabelle stood and approached the door. She was never good at waiting.

"Let's go,"

Alec cast his stunned eyes at her. Backup! He seemed to scream.

"Let's go," Isabelle repeated, reaching out a hand to him.

The minute his hand met hers she touched the doorknob.


	6. Lost in Flames

Chapter 6

(earlier in the day)

Clary stared down at her phone.

_I'm coming over._

She couldn't judge his tone. The most recent message before it was from a week ago about which movies to rent for their superhero marathon. Why was it so short? And why was he coming over? Clearly she hadn't asked him to or there would be a text. Simon always asked before coming over, just to make sure she wasn't busy. And the messages usually were extremely ramble-like, filled with things they needed to talk about or something he wanted to do. Clary didn't think she'd ever gotten a message from him that was only one line.

He's angry. That was the only logical conclusion. But angry about what? The poetry reading was awful like usual, she remembered the feedback in the beginning, and they'd gotten coffee like usual. After that they'd-

She stopped. That was where her memory stopped. What was she forgetting? What had happened between them drinking coffee together and her getting sick and having to get taken home?

Minutes ticked by and still she couldn't remember. Then she checked the message. It had been sent a half hour ago, if she hurried she could probably meet him at the train station. Then she could ask him, or maybe he'd bring it up on his own.

"Mom?" She called, removing the afghan from her lap and stretching her legs. Her mom appeared in the doorway, yellow paint streaks and dots lining her arms and a wet brush in her hand. Her eyebrows were raised. "Mom, Simon's taking the train over here, can I borrow the truck to meet him at the station?"

Having stayed at the farm many times, Clary new how to get to the train station with the rusty truck Luke left in the barn. Her mom's eyes filled with an emotion Clary didn't recognize.

"Sweetie, are you feeling alright? It's only been a little while and I don't know if I feel comfortable with you driving right now."

Clary didn't know why but she NEEDED to do this. It was ringing through her with an intensity that couldn't be ignored. "I'm fine Mom, it all came back to me so I'm good to go."

Her mother's face was disbelieving. "Sweetie, I just don't think-"

"Please, mom?"

Her mom closed her eyes in defeat. "Just be very careful, Clary. If you feel sick at all stop the car and wait for me to come get you."

That wasn't going to happen but Clary nodded. Soon she would see Simon and then everything would be fixed.

* * *

Isabelle's demon-butt-kicking boots touched hard packed dirt and she maintained enough control to stay upright. Her brother, on the other hand, got a mouthful of earth. She stretched out a hand to the corn sprouts next to her as her brother pulled himself up.

He looked straight ahead and took an involuntary step back. Then he let out a low whistle. "You think that's…?"

Isabelle didn't bother lifting her head, she could feel the heat and the flames were an endless crackle as though they were trapped in a heated bag of popcorn. She nodded, "Yep, I'm pretty sure that's where our suspects are. Or were, I guess."

Alec pulled out his stele and drew two connecting sets of twisted lines on his outer shoulder. It took Isabelle a second to process what he was doing but then she did the same.

"Alright," Alec started, "let's take a look around then."

Isabelle's legs were practically dragging her over to the burning farm house. Heart hammering with a playful intensity, she smiled a wolfish grin and picked up the pace a little. She couldn't help it, this was her first official mission and her first time using the fire reflecting rune. When she got to the porch, a full two minutes before Alec, she stopped, her grin slipping from her face as steady determination filled her. The flames jumped in front of her, mere inches from torching her hair, and yet she felt nothing. Hesitantly, she stretched out a finger.

It was like the fire wasn't there, all she felt was warm air. Her smirk returned bigger than ever and she flipped around to her brother. Then, stretching her arms out like a magician, she walked backwards into the flames.

Alec groaned, why did she always have to be so dramatic? And then he warily followed her retreating form into the smoldering remains of what must have been a quaint little house.

* * *

"Nothing!" Isabelle called from the room she was poking her head into. She waved her sensor around and focused her eyes for any type of glamour.

"Let's get out of here then!" Alec shouted. "Before it all comes down!"

Outside the slowly caving structure, the siblings met to discuss the lack of evidence or anything in the house.

"So, I found nothing." Alec shot off, annoyed. "I guess they just came out here to have a barn party or something." He added sarcastically, waving at the smoke.

"Alec, don't be ridiculous," Isabelle rolled her eyes. "If this was a barn party they would have lit the ACTUAL barn on fire, not the farm house next to it."

Alec put a hand to his face and rubbed at his forehead. "You're right, what was I thinking?"

"Anyway," Isabelle added, "my sensor found recent demon activity in one of the rooms but the fire had burned away most of the furniture and some of the floor so I couldn't tell if they were summoned or attacking."

"There were no bodies in there though," Alec mused.

"Yeah," Isabelle thought it over, "So…they could have been summoned. If they were attacking there would have been bodies."

"Unless they working for someone."

"Then they could have been retrieving the mundanes for their master."

Alec reached out a hand to Isabelle and grabbed her shoulder. "I think it's time we turned this over to the Clave."

Isabelle had a moment of irrational anger, this was HER mission after all. But seeing the solemn resolve in her brother's eyes, she nodded. "Yeah, okay."

Alec let her go and glanced around at the surrounding corn. "Well, it's going to be a hell of a long walk to the nearest transportation. You ready to walk?"

"


	7. Country Road

Chapter 7

Marching silently back towards Luke's trunk, a slow anger boiling in the pit of her stomach, Clary wasn't watching where she was going. Or maybe she just didn't care. In a world where everything she had thought was solid dissolved maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stumble across other people's paths.

Two and a half hours. That's how long she had sat waiting for Simon to show up. Never mind all of the text messages she had sent to him, each one angrier than the next as she waited for him to do SOMETHING. Heck, she would've taken a simple apology an hour ago. Now it was going to take a couple trips to the pandemonium club and several grand apology gestures to even get her to speak to him. What kind of a person stands their best friend up after she got so sick she lost her memory?

She yanked open the truck's door, not even bothering to baby it as she'd been prone to do ever since finding it in the barn. The seats were hot from sitting in the sun for so long and the uncomfortable sensation only fueled her rage. Why was everything falling apart? Her apartment was no longer her home, her friend was no longer her friend, she couldn't remember much of anything from the past week, and now every part of her ached and burned like a gently mockery that oh yes, things could still get a lot worse.

The truck flew down the narrow country roads making a very satisfying growl every time her foot so much as brushed the gas pedal. Clary left the windows down, feeling each sharp whip of her hair smacking her in the face like a well-deserved punishment for failing at life. It was because of this hair in her face, in fact, that she only had seconds to swerve into the fields on her right before brutally soaring into two people walking alongside the road.

Her head flew forward, stopping just short of smacking off the wheel. Her hands were shaking as she reached down to unbuckle and her mind was soaring at about a mile a minute. She'd almost killed two people.

Pushing open her door and sliding out as fast as possible, she expected to be greeted with shouts of anger and illogical threats. Instead, she discovered the boy and the girl standing exactly where she's last seen them, if not a little farther down the road. The boy was facing away from her, eyeing something down the road that Clary couldn't pinpoint. His messy black hair fluffed up a bit in the slight breeze and he rushed to straighten it out and flatten it back down. As for the girl next to him, who judging by her deep almost blue-black matching hair had to be his sister, she was staring down at the dirt in the road scuffing it back and forth with a booted toe. Clary didn't quite believe it at first, but she seemed almost bored.

"Are you guys okay?" She called. "I'm so sorry, did I hurt anyone?"

The girl shook her head, barely meeting Clary's gaze for more than a second. "Nope. We're fine."

Clary hesitated. They were near her age and walking on what had become a treacherous road. "Can I drive you somewhere?" She offered.

The back of the boys head shook. "No, we're headed the opposite way than you."

Clary waved a hand that neither of them saw, opening the door to the truck once more. "No big deal. I almost killed you guys, it's the least I could do."

She hopped in the cab and waited. Her mother would understand. Driving two siblings in need was different than picking up a hitch hiker. She would be perfectly safe.

They seemed to debate coming with her but Clary waved it off as they finally meandered over. Anyone would be scared to get into a car with someone who drove so badly she'd almost just killed them. Clary froze. She wasn't THAT bad a driver, was she? She gripped the steering wheel as they sat down next to her on the wide bench seat. Well she'd just have to prove to them that she COULD drive. Running them over had just been one mistake on a perfectly clean record. A record that technically hadn't even started because she still didn't have her license.

"Where to?" She asked, glancing nervously at them while trying to look completely at ease.

"The train station." The girl directed and Clary made a U-turn.

The radio in the truck was broken so under the steady sound of the wind whipping through the cab at a slightly slower pace than last time there was complete silence.

"I'm Clary, by the way," Clary started. "Clary Fray. I'm living with Luke Galloway for a little bit while my mom tries to find a new apartment. Maybe you know him?"

She had added the last part in a hurry after watching both passengers suddenly turn her way in intense interest. What had Luke been telling the neighbors about her?

"YOU'RE Clary Fray?" The boy asked, voice clearly insinuating that he thought differently.

She watched the road a little too intensely and shrugged. "Yeah...why?"

His sister jumped in sounding excited. "We've just heard so much about you. There's not many people our age who live around here, we were waiting to meet you."

Clary smiled. Friends. They just wanted to be friends with her. She thought of Simon making her drive all the way to the train station only to never show up. Yeah, she could do with more friends. "I've been sick the past couple of days. That's probably why we're just meeting now."

"Sick how?" The boy's words were sharp but when Clary glanced his way he looked uninterested, scratching at his arm.

"Nothing contagious," She laughed nervously. "Maybe vertigo? I don't really know. I was kind of out of it for a few days and now I've lost some of my memory of the past week."

Out of the corner of her eye, Clary could see the girl look quickly at the boy giving him a look she couldn't understand. "I'm perfectly fine now, though," She added. Except for a headache and the steady feeling of déjà vu she was telling the truth. Everything since she'd woken up had felt like a dream, like if she just shook herself she'd suddenly wake up.

There was a pregnant pause as each person in the car seemed to be lost in their own heads. There was a plan forming silently in the air and the prey was completely oblivious and thinking about dreams.

* * *

"Come with us," Isabelle pleaded. She would get her way eventually. This was her first investigation and she was going to walk all over it in her bat-girl boots.

Clary shook her head again, car keys in hand. "I can't. I just got better and I've been out all day. My mom is probably starting to get worried. Plus I don't really feel up to clubbing."

Isabelle stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Your house was just BURNED TO A CRISP! She wanted to shout at the tiny little red headed mundane in front of her but she didn't. The little troll doll in front of her was her ticket into the Clave.

And so she stopped. She smiled. "Well you know where we're going if you decide to meet us."

Alec looked sharply at her. Walking away was not part of the plan. She grabbed his arm, pinching the inner skin where no one would see to get him to start moving and sent a friendly wave back to Clary as they boarded the train.

"Isabelle!" He hissed as she pushed him into a seat, taking the one next to him in a graceful plop. She held out a hand.

"Hand me the phone."

There was only one phone in question seeing as how neither of them brought cell phones with on the investigation. Alec reached into his pocket and pulled out the dead boy's phone, handing it to Isabelle in genuine curiosity. She in turn smiled smugly and pulled up a messaging conversation.

"What are you doing?" Alec whispered. They were on a crowded train but this level of espionage required low voices.

Isabelle hit send and continued smiling smugly to herself, sliding the phone into her own pocket. Nearly a minute later a startled Clary stepped onto the train, saw the two of them, and threw herself into a seat nearby.

"My friend was hit by a car," her voice wavered. "I need to get to the hospital."

Isabelle's face fell into devastation. "That's terrible."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**So this is it guys. Make it longer? Or stop it very, very soon. Like the next two chapters soon. As I said before, reviews will decide it. So Please Review!**


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